


The Price of Gunpowder

by CrystallizedTwilight



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27892654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystallizedTwilight/pseuds/CrystallizedTwilight
Summary: Patron-Minette supplies Les Amis with weapons for Barricade Day and Montparnasse meets someone he'll never forget.
Kudos: 2





	The Price of Gunpowder

Montparnasse knew when someone wanted to avoid being seen. It was a skill he employed nightly, sweeping into houses of wealth along with the twilight air. He took whatever he could, including lives, if it made him a richer man by the morning. Everyone had their own way of surviving and this was his.

So, he can tell right away that the badly-dressed redhead with a bucket and a nervous look was aiming to avoid onlookers. And what such a shy-looking thing was doing skulking around the back alleys of France was enough of an interest for Montparnasse to follow behind.

By the time he turns the corner, walking at a pace that let his footprints make no sound, the red paint is already dripping down the brick wall.

_Vive la france. Vive l'avenir._

“Propaganda is always aided by an artist’s touch.”

The vandal turns his head sharply to meet the voice, entirely mortified that he’d let someone get so close unknowingly. By the words he had written, it was immediately clear that he was willing to give his life for the revolution. But to die alone in an alley would hinder his brothers more than help them.

Montparnasse doesn’t blame him for not knowing who to trust. He thinks him smart for it. But after a few beats of silence pass it becomes clear to the painter that there is not going to be a physical confrontation. Still, he stares on, eyes daring, chest heaving only slightly, so Montparnasse fills the dead air:

“Do you really think you can change the world?”

The question is not pejorative, though it certainly sounds so. It’s a genuine curiosity Montparnasse would like quenched, since the revolution seemed so irrelevant when he could just keep taking what he wanted under the guise of night (and by the sharp of his blade).

“The only thing I know with certainty is that my life would be a cowardly waste if I did not dedicate it to trying,” the boy finally speaks. His blue eyes are still ablaze with an unexpected conviction and an even more unexpected courage.

“You speak like a poet. Far too loquacious.” Montparnasse teases him lightly with the jab.

“And you walk like a shadow. Far too visible in the _early dawn_.” 

Montparnasse clenches his cane a little tighter. So, this one was smarter than he thought, well aware of his allegiance with Patron-Minette. His smile fades and he purses his lips thin, offering the warning:

“Last I checked, graffiti is crime.”

“One much less fatal than the trail that follows you. Revolutions don’t begin by cowering inside the law.”

But no more can be said because they both hear a twig snap and to be caught in front of such a brazen, dripping message would have them shot on sight. They both bolt, separate, and don’t meet again for months.

.

When Les Amis de l'ABC approaches Patron-Minette for weapons for their steadily-forming resistance, it is an unimaginably profitable deal. No one else in the entire town was willing to sell these schoolboys weapons under the table. So, they could charge them top coin to do so. 

The agreement would carry out over several months. Patron-Minette didn’t exactly have a stockpile of guns, seeing as blades were significantly more courteous sound-wise for their nighttime professions. So, they would steal in small batches when they could and report to Les Amis when there were goods to deliver.

“I see that the poet with the affinity for defacing alleyways has traded his paint for pistols,” Montparnesse notes, pushing through the bustle of the various transactions to find him learning the weight of a musket.

The boy glances over once to see who is speaking, then goes back to aligning his sight with the line of the weapon to mock-fire.

“Less dry time,” he says without eye contact. The humor is there but it is bitter, much more annoyed. Montparnasse wonders if he had taken the mockery of his speech to heart since he is so short with him now.

But still, Montparnasse has come to gloat, so he does: “For someone who would lecture me on my ‘fatal crimes’, you’d just as soon hold a musket and fire on soldiers at your barricade.”

“At least they’d be expecting me and aware of my intentions.”

“You would pull a trigger for equality. But what _makes_ people equal?” Montparnasse asks, taking an uninvited seat at the table beside him. The boy still stands, learning the workings of his purchase. He doesn’t answer him, but Montparnasse doesn’t need him to. He’s happy to elaborate:

“The very thing _I_ kill for: wealth, a readjustment of power. We’re fighting for the very same thing, eliminating those who hoard their riches and influence, except _you_ are taking a dangerously slower route.”

“You think only of yourself. I fight for the freedom of others.”

“We’ll both leave bodies behind us in the end.”

“Perhaps,” the boy answers. 

It is not the response Montparnasse had expected but certainly one that piques his interest in him further. So, he prods just to hear his voice.

“You were meant to hold a quill, not a musket, poet.”

“Heaven knows what _you_ were meant for,” the little one scoffs, patience at its end, “Since you care so deeply about money I’m reminded that you have been paid. No reason for you to linger.”

“What is your name?” Montparnasse can’t help but ask. Those are the first words he has said since he arrived that mange to make the redhead look at him once again. When it seems like he almost won’t be allowed it he adds, “We’ll be doing a lot of business over the next few months. I should know your name.”

“Jehan.”

“Montparnasse.”

.

The hour is incredibly late and even more deadly in the home of one wealthy aristocrat. 

Just as Jehan had been entrusted to spread awareness of the rising revolution with his paint, his graceful quietness was also employed to pilfer documents regarding what the soldiers knew thus far about Les Amis’ dealings from an observant nobelman’s home.

Only Patron-Minette had gotten there first. Simply because he was rich.

Jehan is slammed against the luxurious wallpaper in the dead of night, surroundings just barely illuminated by the blue moonlight from the far window, all else silhouetted black in the dark. He feels the blade to his throat and once again fears that his quest to aid the revolution would leave him dead before it began.

“Jehan?” Montparnasse asks in confusion but there is no time to explain if the shuffling outside of the house is any indication of the situation’s seriousness, “Don’t move.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Jehan asks quietly. His tone seems disappointed, far more sad than frightened. Montparnasse supposed that came with knowing your life was constantly on the line.

“What? No,” Montparnasse scoffs condescendingly as if that was obvious, despite not removing his blade nor the fistful of Jehan’s shirt that had him pinned to the wall, “Stay quiet.”

They both do. And soon Jehan sees why as the rest of Patron-Minette files past the glow of the window outside, running home with their new fortunes. At last, Montparnasse exhales and separates from him.

“If any one of those men had caught you instead of me you’d be all over the carpet like our friend here,” Montparnasse tells him lowly, gesturing his knife vaguely to the shape of the nobleman who was face down on the carpet, leaking a color that would surely have been red in the daylight, “We don’t leave witnesses.”

“Then why save me?”

“What?”

“Why not kill me right here?”

It takes Montparnasse a moment to realize that he actually has a perfectly legitimate reason for doing so, despite it not being the one he used to spare Jehan at all.

“Good deal we got going with Les Amis. I kill a key member and our little buy-sell agreement ends. Can’t risk losing that income.”

“God forbid,” Jehan squints, dismayed by his answer but far from surprised.

“They’re gone, get home. Quickly, quietly. Don’t step in his blood on the way out, you’ll leave footprints.”

.

There is no reason for Montparnasse to approach any members of Les Amis unless he had more weapons to vend but he hopes Jehan may overlook that fact because he has been drinking.

He’s a quiet drunk, nearly alone in the tavern with only the barmaid bussing the counter mindlessly in the back. He sits with his elbow on the table, his head in his hand, and Montparansse can see his fire-red hair from the window and can’t resist. Quite the moth to the flame.

“Does drinking help with poetry inspiration?” Montparnasse asks, ever charming, as he sits beside his acquaintance. Jehan only sighs so he decides to take a different approach.

“You know, I keep mocking you for being a poet but I haven’t actually read any of your poetry. Would you share some?” 

And he had fully expected Jehan to say no, or, on the small chance he said yes, to pull out a notebook. He looked like the type to carry one. Therefore, it is entirely baffling to him when Jehan simply begins to recite from memory:

“ _The scent of rose tangles into the stitches_

_Wicked sweetness rivaled in curiosity_

_Only by the mystery that follows his stride_

_Angelic in every way except holy_

_Pulchritudinous_

_Even to those who know better_.”

At last, Montparnasse had asked the right question. Genuinely awed by the recital, he loses his wit and simply speaks from the heart.

“The world will be robbed of you, Jehan Prouvaire. It will become a poorer place without your writing.”

“The world has much more crucial needs than my poetry.”

Just as quickly, they were back to the subject of the revolution. Montparnasse doesn’t blame him, he was certain anything that one dedicated their life to would always be on their mind to some degree. 

But still, it angers him that they lived in a world where a poet must take up arms to right injustices instead of filling his days jotting down his beautiful words on paper. It wasn’t fair in the slightest that such artistry should be wasted because others were too submissive in their fear.

“And why must _you_ be the one to right them? Why not take what you can and leave the rest to live another day?”

“You’re speaking as yourself.”

“My sources say you come from wealth. An only child of riches,” Montparnasse whispers on a hush of breath, low in the tavern so others don’t overhear.

It breaks his heart to hear Jehan chuckle, joyless and low, scratching his fingers into the same flame of hair that had drawn Montparnasse into the tavern in the first place.

“Ah……so you’ve come to rob me when I’m drunk. A waste of your efforts, really. Should I fall at the barricade I’m sure Patron-Minette will find whatever is in my pockets.”

His words sting and Montparnasse is just starting to realize why they do.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why else would you come? You have no other obligation to the revolution than to sell us our guns.”

“I wanted to see you. The unfolding of the revolution is on a need to know basis, one I’m highly banned from, and I never know each time I see you if it will be the last.”

He wonders for a moment how much Jehan had to drink, and almost wishes it was at least a full glass, if it would help him accept his words as truth more easily. But it appears, by his poems and his speech patterns, that he’s at the tail end of his buzz and sobriety was at his door.

“What a poor trait for your profession: You’re too caring for a murderer.”

“And you’re too brave for a writer.”

“ _All_ writers are brave to some degree. It is true courage to lay one’s soul out in letters for the entire world to see.”

“ _Even for those who know better?_ ” Montparnasse questions, referencing the last line of Jehan’s poem. 

That’s right. It was far from lost on him.

Realizing that he has said too much, Jehan stands.

“It’s late. I’m heading home.”

.

Over their next few encounters, it seemed that as long as Montparnasse was clever and asked in the right way, he could get Jehan to open up a little bit more to him each time.

He learned that he liked to garden, spoke four languages, had a love of The Middle Ages, and played the flute. All very fitting but so nice to discover. He also learned how he lit up with pink when gifted Montparnasse’s signature, long-stem rose.

The only downside to learning all of these things was that it only confirmed what Montparnasse had feared: Jehan’s soul was too delicate for war. And how was it fair that a boy who showed such tenderness to his garden should ever have to load gunpowder into a musket? 

Montparnasse chides himself for ever taking the jab at him that he was meant to hold a quill, not a gun, now that he knows just how damn true that is. The world truly _would_ be poorer without him. And it was alarming how much someone who already had a body count cared about losing one life in particular.

In fact, he may have overlooked the fact that General Lemarc taking a turn for the worse was significant in any way had it not been for Jehan growing so quiet one evening.

They met at Jehan’s house now instead of the tavern as it was dangerous for the two of them to be seen together too often, lest they be recognized or the soldiers grow suspicious. And what Jehan may have simply perceived as a cautionary measure to allow him inside felt very warm and welcoming to Montparnasse.

But the silence falls. And when a poet was out of words, the world always grew a little darker.

“You’re stressed. Lemarc’s health is important to your cause,” Montparnasse states. It’s a guess, an attempt to get some information, but he supposed they still weren’t close enough to speak on revolutionary specifics as Jehan denies the implied question and responds vaguely:

“His health is important to all the lower class.”

“Jehan.”

More silence.

“Jehan, please—“

“I’m not afraid to die.”

The words cut through Montparnasse like the metal of his blade. He’d known that from the first moment they’d met. But now it hurt. It _hurt._

“Don’t be selfish,” he barely manages through gritted teeth. In his heart Montparnasse knows it’s an unfair accusation. After all, there was no greater act of selflessness than giving one’s life by fighting for a better future for all. 

But it feels selfish, irrationally, to disregard his feelings. To sit with him in a warm tavern and recite him that goddamn _poem_ , only to give all his love to the barricade and not someone who would have cherished it.

“How is it that I am so much more terrified of this revolution than you are?” Montparnasse asks as he’s shaking. Jehan’s face is between his hands and it’s far too much all at once but how could he wait any longer when he never knew whether this would be his last chance?

“Because you fight for nothing,” Jehan gasps, only partially believing that.

“I’d fight for _this_.”

The kiss is allowed.

No, it is _welcomed._

.

“There’s nothing I can do to stop you, is there?” Montparnasse asks softly. 

Jehan lays peacefully on his chest, quite content to have his hair adorned with the tiny sprigs of flowers Montparnasse keeps picking from the bedside vase and placing into his hair.

The moment seems almost too perfect to ruin with such a question but it is one that he feels he needs to speak for his own peace of mind. 

Jehan doesn’t answer but turns his head to kiss Montparnasse’s chest softly.

“Can you recite some poetry for me?” Montparnasse asks very thinly, eyes swimming, voice misty.

“Not today,” Jehan whispers, apologetically, heart far too heavy with the knowledge that Lemarc had become bedridden to speak any words of beauty.

Montparnasse draws in a shuddering breath which Jehan can both feel and hear, ear pressed to his sternum, and it sounds like reluctant acceptance. Jehan runs his thumbs lightly over Montparnasse’s ribs, hoping that would comfort them both.

“Have I changed your mind about Patron-Minette? You could still join us.”

“And you could still join _us,”_ Jehan responds.

The air is still for a moment and a bird tweets joyously outside in the daylight, blissfully unaware of all that was soon to come.

“If I see any soldiers take a back alley for the barricade, I’ll give him directions with my pocket knife.”

Jehan almost laughs at that. Dark humor was still a light in a time when there really wasn’t much cause to laugh at all.

“I suppose that’s something.”

Jehan doesn’t look up but he doesn’t need to in order to tell that Montparnasse has finally allowed the tears to fall. He feels the shake in him, lets himself be wrapped up in his embrace, and sees the petals fall from his hair and onto Montparnasse’s chest as that kiss is held against the top of his head.

“You give them fucking _hell_ , Jehan.”

It’s a plea more than a cheer and they both sort of know it. When Jehan finally lifts his head to touch their lips once more, Montparnasse notices just how lovely he looks: glorious, peaceful, the way he was meant to be. Draped in sunlight and adorned with flowers, war far from his mind, smile soft and eyes full of more love than any of his poetry could ever convey. 

If this was how Jehan could look _all_ the time, if the revolution was won, if this is what they could _be_ …suddenly Montparnasse cared very deeply about the outcome. 

And now he hopes to god all the guns he put in the hands of Les Amis simply allow Jehan to come home.

.

The End


End file.
